I have told you how close together the people live on the fertile plains of eastern China. There is so little room that many live on boats on the rivers and in the harbors. On this account their farms are not so large as ours. The tea trees in the gardens are about five or six feet high. If they were allowed to, they would reach a height of twenty-five feet; but they are kept trimmed for the same reasons that the coffee trees are pruned. The trees are raised from seeds, and are generally planted on land which slopes toward the south. What advantage is this? In about three years after planting, the first crop of leaves can be gathered. In China they are usually gathered four times each year, and the trees continue to yield for twenty-five or thirty years. When the leaves are picked, they are full of sap or juice, and so have to be dried. The drying is usually done on trays made of bamboo. While they are drying, they are rubbed and rolled between the palms of the hands, so that they may dry more quickly and evenly. Next the leaves are placed, a few at a time, in iron pans over a charcoal fire. They are left in these but a short time, for they are hot. This process is called "firing." Sometimes the leaves are "fired" but once, and sometimes twice. The tea is then spread out, and broken bits of stems are removed. Some of the tea growers place the tea in baskets which are suspended over slow fires, for drying. If you were to look into some of the _tea-hongs_ or houses where tea is cured and packed, you would find the tea dried in a very curious fashion. [Illustration: FIG. 38.--Picking Tea. "Pinehurst," South Carolina.] In one of the rooms you would see several Chinamen rolling and tossing balls about with their bare feet. The balls are about the size of footballs and are partly filled with tea. Although it looks like play, it is hard work. As the balls are tossed about, the tea leaves are given their rounded or twisted appearance. From time to time the workers stop and tie the bags up more closely at the neck. This method is used in making _gunpowder tea_. Black and green teas are not different varieties, but are produced by different methods of handling. In the great tea-hongs there are professional _tasters_,--that is, men who do nothing but sip tea from small cups, so as to grade it and fix its value. This is considered a very particular line of work and requires an educated taste. The ocean atmosphere has a bad effect on tea, so that the very finest grades are seldom sent across the sea. When tea is to be shipped by water, it is placed in boxes lined with a sort of sheet lead. This protects the tea greatly. Most of the tea sent to the United States lands at San Francisco. Why? How does it get to other parts of our country? Great quantities of tea are pressed into the form of bricks and sent over mountains and across deserts into Russia.